In the monotheist religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), a prophet is a person who makes God's will particularly clear, whether or not doing so involves making any predictions about the future. When philosophers discuss prophecy, they are typically interested in prophecies concerning the contingent future. Let's say that a future event is contingent if and only if it is both possible that it happen and possible that it not happen. In other words, future contingent events are not determined to occur and not determined not to occur; they are “up in the air”, so to speak. Imagine that based upon the revelation of an infallible God, a person prophecies that some future contingent event will occur. Since God cannot be wrong, does it follow that the future contingent event must occur? And if it must occur, how can it be a free act?
Under this premise, our options are:
- There are no future contingent events. God's providential control over the world is so thorough and detailed that nothing is left to chance, not even free choices as human beings.
- Deny that God has any knowledge of the contingent future [open future]
- God exists outside of time itself [ever-present eternity]
- God has middle knowledge: through natural knowledge [nobody can control], God knows what is necessary and what is possible. Through middle knowledge, God knows what every possible person would do freely in every possible situation. So God decides which kind of world to create, including those situations in which free human persons should be placed, knowing how they would respond, and this results in God's free knowledge (contingent truths which are up to God, which includes foreknowledge of the actual future, including all human actions).
As philosophical thought processes are applied to religion, and we eliminate the absolutes (no choice or God controls all), then human free choice becomes much trickier to explain. All I know is that I absolutely believe in free choice and the associated consequences.
